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1960 – 1969

Irish Ruff Velvet

We bought Ruff as a puppy. He was a hunting companion for Don. We bought him from the Camas area for what was then a huge sum of money, $50. Ruff was out of field lines and his grandsire was a field champion.

Miss Velvet Britches

We bought Missy as a companion for Ruff. We entered our first dog show and Missy and I came home with a third place ribbon from Novice A. I was ‘hooked’. Our first litter of puppies was born in 1965, of course sired by Ruff.

CH Lilley’s Holiday Cheer CDX

Realizing that Ruff and Missy were not conformation material we set off to find ourselves “show dog”. Emil and Lillian Bingham of Fircrest Springers took us under their wing and started mentoring us. They suggested that if we wanted to show dogs, we should start with a good foundation bitch.

They suggested that we look for a puppy out of CH Geiger’s Chief Geronimo so we contacted Tillie Geiger, his owner. After waiting for a puppy from a litter than did not materialize she put us in touch with Daisy Lilley who had a litter out of Chief.

When time came for us to make our choice, we made our choice in a very “scientific” manner. The puppies were already named so I picked the one with the name I preferred! Luck was with us and Cheer became our foundation bitch.

Cheer was owner handled to her championship despite our novice handling. Early photos show us just how much Cheer had to overcome in the way of our handling errors.